Speaking to industry analysts recently, Nintendo America President Reggie Fils-Aime has been forced to admit that predicting when Wii supply will meet demand is beyond him.



While clever in its positive spin, the simple fact is that, despite years of planning and more than a year on sale, there are not even close to enough Wiis to meet supply. The masses of consumers who are demanding the hugely successful console will not be placated by clever spins

All this is despite Nintendo pushing manufacturing to 1.8 million Wiis per month. This level of production is not going to be raised either according to Reggie: "We'll keep producing at that level for quite a while."

SPOnG's consulted our business management manuals, and we just can't come up with a usable definition for the term 'while'. We think it's short than 'bloody ages' but longer than a 'moment'.

Apparently the production cock-up isn't Ninty's fault though - and yes, it is either a cock-up in management and planning, or it is a deliberate throttling of supply; Fils-Aime has already denied the latter.

"Production depends on components from a wide array of suppliers. If only one can't increase their capacity, then we can't increase ours", said Fils-Aime.

Apparently, Reggie is being bugged about this Wii supply from all angles, "I get personal calls from people wanting to know why we don't just manufacture more. Believe me, if it were that easy, we would."

That's okay then.

Retail, at least in the United States, isn't taking it lying down though. With the Wii in short supply everywhere this 'The Holidays' different retail outlets are taking different approaches to meeting demand. Some are taking small margins or losses even with bad bundles or no bundles at all. GameStop, however, has decided to offer what it's calling a 'Rain Check'.

According to Forbes, "The rain checks will be available at the regular Wii system price, $249.99, (£124.20) on December 20 and 21, and will entitle buyers to get the Nintendo console before January 29.

According to Reggie Fils-Aime, "many tens of thousands of rain checks" would be available. Clever, uh? Because he didn't actually say that, "Many tens of thousands of Wiis would be available".

Looks to SPOnG as if this is an excellent way for GameStop to receive the cash up-front. At least this is a straightforward and honourable way of not inflating the price purely as a cash-in though.

^{See also Forbes}